Can anything good come from this burglary prosecution of six UK Football players?

Mark Stoops would like to enjoy good times this season with a veteran team but the arrest of six players has taken away from the football hype the last two weeks. (Jeff Houchin Photo)

The Greek philosopher Plato once said in his book “Phaedrus” that “Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” That seems to be an apt explanation of what is currently happening with six Kentucky football players who were involved in an altercation at an off-campus fraternity house party back in March of 2021.

It appears from police reports taken in March that some players were at a party, potentially some racial slurs were used by some of the party-goers, fights broke out between the players and some of the members of the party and, based on one witness from the party, a gun may have been produced and waved at members of the party.

All of that back and forth testimony creates a tremendous “he said/she said” scenario, not to mention that just recently a player’s parent produced documentation that exonerated that player from any wrongdoing in the altercation per a review by the University of Kentucky Office of Student Conduct Assistant Director Libby Hogan.

Throw in former Louisville Metro Police Sergeant and current State Senator Denny Butler’s (who was called in by the coaching staff to help sort through this morass of information) statement that one of the players (Vito Tisdale) charged with wanton endangerment (waving the gun around) has passed a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent and the whole story only gets more tangled.

So here’s the point. I’m not trying to say the players are innocent or guilty of anything. I don’t know. I’m also not trying to say the fraternity party attendees are innocent or guilty of anything. The University has already decided that according to their own investigation of the incident.

What I am saying is by bringing the police into the matter and by involving the court system with this matter who benefits? The Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity members and party attendees don’t benefit because they have already been put on probation by the University for student code violations that occurred at the party. They will also have to testify at some point if this case goes to trial, which puts them under greater scrutiny by the University and the risk of perjury if everything they say in court doesn’t match up with any facts or other evidence presented.

The players sure don’t benefit because they have already missed 11 weeks of football activity and now are no longer practicing with the team while all this mess gets sorted out. Most of the players were slated to be backups, so missing practice time for them greatly affects their ability to play football this year. Plus each player is having to pay defense attorneys to represent them in all these legal matters and since players do not get paid to play college football paying those legal fees could create a financial hardship for all six players or their parents.

The University doesn’t benefit because it has already investigated the incident and dealt with both parties according to the student conduct rules already in place. They don’t need the ongoing bad publicity from an event that they immediately dealt with several months ago.

The taxpayers sure don’t benefit because it’s their tax dollars that are being wasted to press charges and put these players through the judicial process. Keep in mind that valuable police resources, prosecutorial resources, and judicial resources have been, in my opinion, wasted on an event that has already been dealt with by the University. With the court system currently as jammed up as it is why waste precious court time on a case such as this?

Let’s be real. Just for discussion purposes let’s say the case goes before the grand jury and by some quirk in the system, the grand jury believes there is enough credible evidence to indict some or all of the players. Those players would then go forward in a trial charged with first-degree burglary and one would also be charged with first-degree wanton endangerment. And let’s just say that the case goes to trial (which is another huge waste of taxpayers’ money because of the enormous expense of a trial for both parties) and let’s just say that a miracle occurs and the prosecutor can find 12 jurors that would unanimously convict based on the “he said/she said” evidence we have heard (remember that the evidence has to be beyond a shadow of a doubt and that all parties are innocent until proven guilty), at that point who benefits?

We, as taxpayers, would have invested an enormous amount of money and resources to convict 18 to 19-year old college students of a felony that would follow them around for the rest of their lives. They would most likely lose their football scholarship, lose their opportunity to earn a college degree, would probably be required to pay a large fine, and maybe have to spend some time in jail, which once again, the taxpayers would pay for.

After the conviction would they be better citizens? I don’t think so. If they lost their scholarship and opportunity to earn a college degree would they be more valuable to society? Absolutely not, and there are multiple studies on criminal behavior that would prove that point.

So once again I would ask if we as the taxpayers continue down this road, what do we gain from this activity? I would say absolutely nothing. There is great risk here for the players, the University, taxpayers in general because of the cost involved, and yes, even the fraternity members because of the negative fallout they will receive after this whole situation has finally been resolved.

Hopefully, someone with more foresight than what has been shown so far by the governmental groups that have been involved, will step in and stop this train wreck before it reaches a complete climax in the court system.

Like Plato said in the quote above, “the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” And what has been carefully hidden is why the government wants to step in and waste so much money, time, and energy on a situation that seems to have already been dealt with by the University.

Former Judge of the Second Circuit United States Court of Appeals Irving R. Kaufman once said, “The judicial system is the most expensive machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it.”  In this particular case, I think he was right on the “money.”